


harder days coming, maybe i don't mind

by Plooby



Series: and as we fall we sing [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bad Ideas, F/M, Jady Brosca, expensive benches, imagination adventures about dragon age ocs, reimagined canon scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plooby/pseuds/Plooby
Summary: Jady has an idea. Alistair is not into it.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Brosca (Dragon Age)
Series: and as we fall we sing [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790470
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	harder days coming, maybe i don't mind

There was something Alistair found comforting, beyond the obvious, about seeing Jady in Eamon's Denerim estate. He thought it might be to do with how wildly out of place she looked there: a solid sturdy figure making her way around head and shoulders below most everyone else, with an axe as big as she was slung over her back as often as not, and her face marked with the brand on her cheek and big tattoo over her eye. Maybe it wasn't the nicest of impulses, but it made him feel less out of place himself alongside her, being back here as a grown man instead of a sullen nervous boy trying to avoid tripping himself on the furniture. If nothing else, she was the best proof he had that this wasn't his life anymore -- that he had another one that was, for as rough as it had been lately, still much better.

It was less comforting, though, to see her coming back into Eamon's study with that look of grim determination on her face, from whatever Anora had wanted to talk to her about. When Alistair added up the combination of those two factors in his mind, he found he didn't like the sum they made in the slightest.

"I have to talk to you," she said when he turned from the bookshelves in the corner, which actually managed to make the maths of it all even worse. At least Eamon wasn't around; he was off talking with his guards about fortifying the main building, now that Alistair and Jady and all the rest had brought Anora back here, and broken out of Fort Drakon themselves in the bargain.

"What's wrong?" he asked, keeping his voice down. "Is she not going to work with us?"

That brought Jady up short, and she looked at him as though really seeing him for the first time before shaking her head. "No, she is. She's an all right one, Anora. Smart. Bit of a bitch. I like that." Alistair snorted before he could help himself, and Jady gave him a quick lopsided smile. "We talked about something else, too, though. I had an idea. That's what I need to talk to you about."

Alistair frowned, but gave her his whole attention, setting his back to the wall. "What is it?"

Jady took another breath. Then she drew herself up firmly to her full height, round about his sternum, and said, "I think you should marry her."

The silence roared. It practically screamed. For quite a few seconds it was all Alistair could do to keep his breaths going in and out in the right order, and his legs in the proper orientation to the ground. Talking at all was right out of the question.

"What," Alistair was able to say finally, and then that didn't seem like enough, so he said it again, differently. " _What?_ "

Jady winced, he was dimly aware -- like she'd been expecting him to be unreasonable about this and here he was, being unreasonable. He thought maybe he was going to find his way to starting to be angry, whenever he could get out of being so completely stunned that he didn't know where his feet were. "I know it's out of nowhere. I'm not saying you're secretly in love with her or anything, it's -- a politics thing, you know? It makes sense." She took a look at his face and then didn't seem to want to look at whatever she saw there anymore. "It's... everything works out the way everybody wants it. She wants to be queen, she gets to be queen. You don't want to be king, but Arl Eamon and everybody want you to be king, so you're... sort of king. You let her do most of it and you do the parts where you're charming and make everybody like both of you. And it doesn't look like the Wardens want to make ourselves king, because she's there too. If you think about it, it could work out really good."

"I don't want to think about it," Alistair said so low and hard it was almost something like a snarl, and oh, _there_ was being angry, angry was a possibility again. "I don't even know why you're -- " He caught himself up, though, because Jady was starting to go from looking determined to looking really miserable, and it was immediately hard for angry to _stay_ a possibility. He took a deep breath, instead, before he went on. "...Why are you saying this? What about us?"

"I know, but..." Her voice was starting to sound less strong. Less strong than he thought he'd ever heard it, actually. "It's important. For loads of people. This isn't about me. Us. We've got to do the right thing for everybody. That's our job, isn't it?"

"And this is the right thing? Me _marrying Anora_ is somehow the right thing." Jady just looked more uncomfortable than ever, with no answer seeming forthcoming, and Alistair took a deep breath and let it out in a noisy sigh. "It _is_ about us, anyway. You're important too. Important to me, anyway. I don't -- " He hesitated there -- this was edging out into awkward territory, on thin creaky ice between the two of them -- but then finally pushed his way on. "I don't want to be with anyone else. I don't even want to pretend to be. I mean... is that what _you_ want?"

"It doesn't matter what I want!" Jady hissed, with enough sudden desperate force to startle him back a little. "It works for everybody, it's a good solution, it's the smart thing to do, it'll help everybody in the country. It doesn't fucking matter what I want. I'm _not_ important. I'm _nobody._ "

Alistair found he could only stare at her for a few heartbeats. Finally he tried, "Jady -- "

"I'm nobody and you should be king and doing important shit and married to somebody who maybe actually deserves you," Jady said. Her voice was no less forceful now, but all the desperation and urgency had fallen out of it all at once, leaving it hollow. "Just let me do the right thing this time."

Alistair stared at her, and she stared at the floor. Neither of them said anything for a little while.

"All right, we're," Alistair started to say, and then had to stop and collect himself halfway through. "Having a different conversation now, I think. Come on."

They ended up in one of the empty guest rooms down the hall that had been hastily furnished with extra beds; he couldn't even remember right away who specifically was staying there. It had a door that would shut and no risk of Eamon coming back and wanting his study at a hysterically awkward moment, and that was good enough to be going on with. Jady sat down on the padded bench by the door with a look on her face like she was sitting down to her last meal before climbing the gallows, and after a few seconds' pause Alistair sat down beside her. She was taller on him sitting, although it would be rude to point out that her legs dangled.

"You said 'this time,'" he said, when she didn't seem like she would say anything at all, and she winced again when he did, in rather a different way from before. "You mean Bhelen?"

She sighed, thumping her head back on the wall with the thick red tail of her hair crushed behind it. Her voice was low and tired. "Course I mean Bhelen. What other complete pieces of shit have I made king lately?"

"I don't know, you could've been larking about on the side." She snorted, but he counted the tiny twitch in her lips as a victory anyway. It was gone quickly, though, and thinking about it, this didn't feel like quite the right approach; he tried another. "...I don't think you're nobody."

"Well, I am," she said, in the hard brusque way that she always said things she didn't want to be talking about at all. "Pop back into Orzammar and ask anybody, they'll sort you out. Can't believe you missed it the first time. Ask Oghren. You think he doesn't know it?" He didn't have an answer to that, and she fell silent, brooding down at her hands. "Being on the surface is the first time in my life I've had five minutes in a row to forget what I am, but somehow I almost did it. We'd do all these things and people would say, 'oh, you're great, you're a hero!' instead of 'sod off and put that sword back where you found it before you land your arse in the Legion, duster,' and somehow I finally started thinking, you know, maybe those first ones are actually the ones who're right. They've seen more of what I can do by now, so why not? Maybe I could be different from what everybody always said -- maybe something better than just good at hitting things, even.

"But down there, _they_ never forgot. I walked back in there and when they looked at me, I knew exactly what they saw." She took a long slow breath, sighed it out. "And I guess what they saw is what's there. Because some nasty little cheating, murdering snake gave my sister some nice clothes and enough to eat and put a boy in her belly, and what did I do? I put a crown on his head. And I ran off back to the surface while everybody else gets to deal with whatever he's like with it on there." She snorted again, under her breath, and rubbed absently at the mark on her cheek with her thumb. "So I guess we really are trash like they always say we are. Or I am, anyway."

"How do you figure that?" Alistair asked. He kept his voice down, but there was another beat of anger starting up in his chest, though entirely different in cause and direction. The thought of someone -- a _lot_ of people, over and over, saying things like that to _Jady_ \-- "You're nobody, and trash, for wanting your sister and your nephew to be safe and happy? How does that follow?"

"There's a lot more to it than that," Jady said, with a grimacey little twist in her mouth that was barely anything like a smile. "I'm just saying, I can talk all I want about how things ought to be different there. But as soon as I actually had a chance to make anything different -- I just did the most selfish thing I could." She glanced at him again sidelong, her half of a smirk grim and caustic. "Doesn't exactly prove them wrong."

"Why do you have to prove anything?" She didn't answer that, though, and Alistair made himself take a breath before he changed direction again. "So, your sister, and her son. Bhelen is good to them? He treats them well?"

Jady nodded, sharply, maybe with a bit of irritation. "Course he does. That's the whole point. If he didn't, I -- " She broke off there, though, lapsing into a troubled silence. Alistair pressed it, though, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees to get a better look at her.

"If he didn't, you never would have left them there with him. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? You'd do something else. Take them with you, or something. I know you would." Her brow was more knitted than ever, but Jady nodded, eventually. He pushed even further. "But he cares about them. At least enough to treat them well. That's something, right?"

Jady hissed a disgusted breath through her teeth, rolling her eyes. "Oh, aye, give him a fucking medal."

"No, look, I'm trying to say something. Just listen a minute." She eyed him skeptically, but didn't interrupt again. "You've told me how most people treat people like you and your sister in Orzammar. I saw some of it for myself, though I'm sure they didn't dare do the worst of it. But Bhelen's good to your sister, and she likes him, enough that you didn't want to do anything to ruin that for her. So that does sort of tell you something, doesn't it? If he was willing to go against all that for her, and he was willing to make deals with you -- even if, admittedly, in a very sleazy sort of way -- that says maybe he thinks about the casteless a little differently than most. And maybe as a king, he'd be different about them, too."

Jady appeared to think about that for a long while, little expressions flickering across her eyes and brow. Finally she exhaled a long breath, sinking back further into the wall behind her. "Seems like sort of a long shot to me," she said -- although he thought there was something new in her voice now. Something that seemed willing, cautiously, to open up a little. "Having a casteless for a doxy doesn't exactly make him our champion. He's no better than any of the other backstabbing noble shits down there, on balance."

"Probably not," Alistair agreed. "But maybe he's no worse, either." That seemed to throw her for a second, and he pushed the advantage again. "What I'm saying is, maybe there wasn't a completely right answer. There isn't, sometimes. And if he were _really_ bad -- if there was nothing redeeming about him, if it seemed like he was just going to be a tyrant and -- I don't know, push people into the lava for fun -- I don't think you would have let him be king, even if it was the best thing for your family. Because it _wouldn't_ be the best thing for them. And because I know you, and I know that if it really were just a completely selfish choice -- you wouldn't be able to stand making it." Jady was already opening her mouth to say something, frowning, and he shook his head. "Don't say it's not true, because it is. I know you. Better than almost anybody by now, I think, like you said. And all right, sometimes you'd rather hit someone first and ask questions later, and you are a lot better at picking pockets than I think I strictly needed to know about, and you've been known to occasionally say frankly hurtful things about people's hair that they put a lot of effort into, but every time it comes down to it..."

He found himself having to take a breath to steady himself, unable to look right at her. "When it comes down to it, you're always trying to help people. Giving too much coin for something we don't need to some refugee who's down on their luck, or running into danger when you hear someone calling for help, and -- much bigger things, like all of this, doing all of this so we can save everyone. Maybe none of the other dwarves saw any of that about you, but that's their loss, as far as I'm concerned. I think you're amazing. I always have." He knotted his hands together where they rested across his knees, and stared at them. "And... that's why I don't want to even think about marrying someone else, no matter the reason. I mean, I think you're beautiful, and... sexy, and everything, of course I do, but... all of that matters so much more. I don't want anything to keep me from being with you, just because of the -- incredible person that you are." One more deep breath, and he shut his eyes. "But... _because_ it's you, if you want me to... I'll think about it. If you really want me to give this thing with Anora a try, I will. For you."

"Well, I don't, because I'm stupid and I love you and I want to stay with you so you can keep saying loony things like that to me," Jady said after no more than a beat of pause, all in one fast hard blurt. Her voice sounded taut almost to the point of shaking, under a thin veneer of exasperation.

Alistair froze, his eyes springing open again and going wide. There was another extremely long silence while that settled in.

"I'm sorry I haven't said that before," Jady said finally, ending it, and her voice was very small now, almost entirely unlike herself. "I'm... really stupid. I was scared. I thought, eventually... you were going to get your head right, about me and what I'm like, and you were going to figure out you deserved somebody better and give it up. So. You know. I didn't want to admit it, and have that be worse than it had to be." She let out a slightly uneven sigh. "But it's bad no matter what. I don't want you to marry Anora. I want you to be with me."

She fell quiet again, and Alistair found himself just struggling wildly -- trying to get his thoughts, or words, or something in order. It felt a bit like trying to spin plates.

"Well, it'll be a real wrench to stay with the woman I love and not get married to my half-brother's widow who doesn't even like me," was somehow what came out of his mouth at last. In the absence of anything else he just went with it, turning her an uneven smile. "But I suppose I can see what I can do."

When he looked at Jady she was staring back at him with no particular expression at all... and then she snorted into a burst of laughter, and fell sideways against his shoulder to lean on him in the process. "She'd eat you alive anyway," she said, mushed against his arm. He lifted it to wrap around her shoulders, tucking her to his chest, even as he suppressed an answering snort.

"Hey."

"It's true. Pick her teeth with the bones." He didn't dignify that with a response, and after a moment she heaved a breath in and out. "...You do? Still?"

"What, you thought I changed my mind suddenly?" She didn't answer, and finally he just pressed a kiss into her hair, at the top of her head. "Of course."

Jady leaned on him more heavily if anything, taking another few seconds to speak again. "I'm sorry," she said again when she did. "I've been... really weird about all this, huh."

"I know, and it's odd because everything that's been happening to us is so normal." She laughed a little again, knocking an elbow into his side that she clearly didn't mean.

"I'm just saying -- I guess I got caught up in everything, sort of. I mean, you don't even want to be king." After another pause she craned her head around so she could look up at him, consideringly, over the top of his shoulder. "I think you'd be good at it, actually -- at least better than you think you would. But if you don't want to... just don't, then. Anora wants to do it, I say let her. It's not like she can screw things up any worse than they already are. Don't see how some dead man's name was supposed to help in the first place."

Alistair squeezed her in a bit tighter again and leaned his cheek on the top of her head, laughing just because of the incredibly lighter feeling all through the middle of him, as soon as she'd said that. "That... sounds... like an amazingly good idea, actually. Is that wrong? Am I supposed to feel like I'm -- disappointing my ancestors, or something?"

"Trust me, they'll get by." She gave that a second's thought, and finally turned herself around to put her boots up on the bench and lean back across his lap. Alistair tried not to think about what might be on her boots and what the bench must have cost in any sort of combination. "Plus, if you're sticking with me, then I'd have to be queen, and I can't be queen. Have you _seen_ me?"

"I think you'd be an amazing queen, actually," Alistair said -- with a bit of a grin, but no end of warmth sneaking out in his voice. Jady turned her face up to him to look up at him sideways, and for a few seconds her eyes were very wide in her round pale face, her mouth soft and parted, entirely off guard. It made her look as young as she actually was, for once.

Then it was gone, and she burst out in brassy loud laughter, shaking against his chest. "Shut it," she said, still half-laughing, "you're so gross," but at the same time as she said it she looped her arms up around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder, clutching him tight. Let it never be said she wasn't an exciting adventure in mixed signals sometimes, too.

Alistair held her in return, though, and when she started to draw back a bit from his shoulder he ducked down into the motion, managing to steal a kiss. Jady gave it back to him with enthusiasm, digging her fingers a little into the hair just above his nape in the way that always made him shiver. When they'd parted, he leaned his forehead on hers, eyes closed. "You love me?"

She nodded, her forehead brushing against his. "I mean, you're only the best thing that's ever happened to me," she said, with her voice gone unusually small again. He just held her a moment, his chest feeling full and warm, just drinking in the way she felt in his arms. It was everything he wanted to carry with him from now on.

"Then I don't think I really mind what else happens," he said, with a breath that was less laugh than exhaled relief. And Jady didn't say anything, but just pressed closer to him. It felt like she might want to stay there a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Genesis 30:3" by the Mountain Goats.


End file.
